Mar 14 2013: Hi there - I've been following the Allan Savory conversations with avid interest - what happened to the conversation about other methods of combating global warming - things like biochar & eco-cement ?!!
Mar 14 2013: Hello Robin - Up until 50,000 - 60,000 years ago 2/3rds of Australia was covered in lush vegetation. Research now strongly suggests that when the First Australians arrived they exterminated all of the mega fauna - what must have been vast herds of them, all within a few thousand years. As these animals - wombats as big as rhinocerouses - were un-afraid of humans, killing & eating them would have posed no problem whatsoever. Just walk up to one & plunge a spear into its heart. Allan Savory's 'conservationists' slaughtered 40,000 large herbivours with guns. All crimes of unimaginable proportions.
The loss of the vast herds of mega fauna from the Australian continent had the same effect on this land that Allan's removal of the vast herds of African elephants had on Africa - as did the removal of the vast herds of bison on the American midwest. First, here in Australia after the demise of the mega fuana, the lush vegetation grew back madly unchecked & smoke & charcoal sediments in lake bottoms from that time are evidence that lighting-started wild fires stripped the continent bare of this plant cover almost immediately, or this plant cover just died & oxidised as Allan shows that it does without herbivores to eat & recycle it. Oxidising plants ruining the soil.
After this initial devastation of Australia 50,000 yrs ago then the 'second Australians' arrived a couple of hundred years ago & we late comers have utterly devastated millions & millions of once productive land all-over again.
Yes. Let's recognise the unspeakable crimes we humans have perpetrated on this planet - & on each other !!!! - but let's get on with 'un-doing' these atrocities. Let's weep for the elephants, bison & herds of wombats as big as rhinocerouses - but let's get on with restoring our ecologies & reversing climate change at the same time.
In Australia we have a miracle-working desert re-greener in the person of Peter Andrews. His method is called 'natural sequence farming'. Check it out.
Mar 14 2013: Hi James - Yes I'm interested !! Margriet here from 'Down Under' (Australia). We also have a miracle-working desert re-greener down here in the person of Peter Andrews & his method is called 'natural sequence farming'. Instead of using live-stock initially to rehabilitate degraded land, this method uses WEEDS. The key to rehabilitating degraded land is to revegitate & ANY way of accomplishing this must be done if we are going to save our planet. Literally. I think you agree. Weeds grow the quickest of any vegetation (& the most prolifically giving the greatest biomass in the shortest time) & if slashed at peak growth & left on the surface to cover the surface soil & then allowed to regrow several times, it only takes a few MONTHS this way to re-establish soil moisture & fertility at which point grasses & grains naturally re-invade the area after which this type of vegetation has become established the land can be stocked with whatever type of live stock the farmer desires. After the weed crops have worked their magic & restored fertility & moisture to the soild, in Peter's method this state of affairs is maintained by leaving all of the highest areas of land covered in trees & shrubs, as among other benefits when the area is re-stocked with animals they tend to do most of their resting & dunging up in the high areas under the shady trees AND when it rains the nutrients in the dung & urine get washed down back into the grassy areas.
Some of the advantages of using weeds initially is that they do it all for free. They only have to be slashed a couple of times. And for the many vegetarians who are pricking up their ears about these fabulous ways of re-greening our planet & reversing global warming at the same time, natural sequence farming doesn't rely on beef production. So you don't have to go out & buy a herd of any kind of meat producing animals to be successful. Peter Andrews learned his method of desert reclamation raising horses. Check it out Cheers
Mar 12 2013: -- continued from my previous comment on 'contrived epiphanies'.
Cult recruitment practices work extremely well when they do work because the recruits are taken 'there' - they are invited/persuaded to enter into a world where they are (seemingly) 'loved' & taken care of some for the first time in their lives. Recruits are flooded with epiphanic-inducing circumstances & spoken messages. These two examples of 'arranged epiphanies' do not exhaust the list.
My point being that epiphanies do happen, are possible, not only change the subject's mind but not infrequently his or her whole way of being, & also can be deliberately orchestrated & in the hands of ethical 'practitioners' operate to the good of everyone concerned.
Imagine for effectively most people's minds could be changed by visiting a example of Allan's work.
In the 'greening the planet & reversing climate change via the Allan Savory's method' 'ethical practitioners' could be no more than 'tour guides' showing willing visitors around examples of his work.
Undoubtedly the Savory Institute is also an extremely powerful & highly ethical epiphany-inducing phenomenon in its own right - any one desiring to become involved in this work, attending the Institute & becoming a student of his ideas, would almost certainly be guaranteed non-stop epiphanies on a daily basis .. ... .. Sure wish I could - & take along a couple of nay-sayers too if I could persuade them . . . . . . Cheers from Down Under
Mar 12 2013: The quickest, easiest, best & by far the nicest & most powerful & indelible way to have one's ideas changed is via an epiphany. And how does one have an epiphany? Aren't they by their very nature serendipitous ? Well some are - but even for a spontaneous epiphany to occur the circumstances &/or the message, must be just right & the subject's heart (psyche) must already be fertile ground for the epiphanic garden of fragrant blossom flowers to grow in it. And today, due to our gargantuan estrangement from both nature & each other, the psyches of fewer & fewer of us are fertile ground for, gulp, 'any good thing to grow in'.
Allan Savory's talk would be epiphanic - if only mildly - for many of those of us who's psychic 'garden soils' are already both fertile & moist enough for his ideas to take hold, take root & begin to grow. Even here 'blossoms' would be a long way off.
But in principle (but perhaps not in practice) no great difficulty at all attends the task of deliberately ARRANGING circumstances so that not just mild epiphanies but grande mal ones will occur in any individual willing to expose themselves to these deliberately contrived epiphanic-inducing circumstances. And here I refer to the phenomenon of simply 'being there'.
Imagine if you went in person to see Allan's work !!!????? And even took a doubtful nay-sayer along with you ???
Although I hesitate to point it out due to the deservedly bad reputation the practice now enjoys, 'interventions' are attempts to create good epiphanies in those persuaded to experience them. If you don't already know in an intervention the subject is persuaded to enter a rehab centre - but apparently all too many back fire. Possibly due in great part to the infertility of the subjects psychic garden soils making it impossible for the seeds of wellness & wholeness to take root - let alone grow & ultimately blossom. The manner in which cults recruit new members by seducing them from off the streets where they live as homeless
Mar 12 2013: Bravo Reza Roboubi & Benjamin Barrington !! Exactly - any one can do science - down here in Australia we have a desert-reclaimer who also has a fabulous tract record in the field (pun most apt!) but who is not a 'qualified expert' but he was awarded the 'Australian of the Year Award a couple of years ago & again his work in reclaiming degraded land is 'proof' enough of the quality & value of the work he is doing. Which is very similar to Allan Savory's marvelous contribution to combating global warming. Personally I think all of us 'believers' in this type of work should be putting all of our effort into supporting it, rather than spending so much time trying to persuade nay-sayers - wouldn't it be great if influential persons like Al Gore got wind of this kind of work - he could tell his audiences about it & spread a great deal more positivism around than 'merely' reminding us that we've got to stop using fossil fuels - which we do of course, but re-greening deserts & badly degraded land is helping everyone & everything & combating climate change as well - how good is all that.
Mar 12 2013: Hi Paul - yes, you missed the answer to that question as it is the question asked of Allan right at the end of his talk - apparently it just comes back on its own ??!!! Allan said there was only one place they had to hand feed the livestock & that was a previously mined location. I'm from Australia & we have a chap down here (Peter Andrews) who reclaims badly degraded farm & grazing land - & he practices allowing weeds to take over for however long it takes them - the weeds - to go through a couple of growth cycles - usually only a few months down here in our climate - before he allows livestock to graze on the land. He calls his method 'natural sequence farming' & points out that grains & grasses almost always eventually take over from the weeds. Initially grains & grasses won't grow in degraded soil but the weeds do so freely but also eagerly & further, they not only cover & protect the soil & thereby help restore the natural water & moisture cycle for that area - & do so very quickly - but because weed root systems are always much deeper than grass/grain roots they restore fertility to the soil as they dredge up vital minerals, water & nutrients from deeper down. Nature being what it is this increased moisture & fertility at the surface allows grasses & grain plants to take over & oust the very weeds which initially provided such a perfect situation for them to grow. But as most farmers & livestock owners want grasses & grains more than they want weeds everyone but the weeds are very happy with the work the weeds originally did to restore productivity back to the land.
The Savory Institute may well have more answers as to Allan method of reclamation - cheers
Mar 10 2013: Kimberly, Yes, Australia is a text book case. When the First Australians came here some 50,000 yrs ago to our continent only one third of it was arid. Quite unintentionally these first Australians wiped out the mega fauna - herds of large marsupials (wombats as big as rhinoceroses, kangaroos 4 times bigger than any extant species). These large animals were stand ins for Allan Savory's elephants & when the First Australians exterminated them this parallels Allan's 'culling' 40,000 elephants. What galactic-sized bad karma were these acts !!! For which we are all paying now. To continue the story: Without these herbivores to keep the vegetation in check, inevitably lightening strikes set off vast wild fires that wiped out the over-abundant vegetation - & the First Australians later exacerbated this degradation via their 'fire stick farming' in which practice the nomadic tribes would first burn out a tract of land & kill & eat the displaced animals & then when the new growth returned the grazing marsupials would come back for the easy pickings & the First Aussies would hang around & take their level of easy pickings from these herds of kangaroos & wallabies etc. The smoke rising from the fires the Aborigines set could be seen for hundreds of miles so other tribes would know where not to go to set their own fire stick farms.No, killing vast herds of herbivores not good, burning large tracts of land not good. Then the Second Australians arrived & the damage to the Australian landscape increased a thousand fold. I'm personally ecstatic about the Savory Institutes work here.AND there is also Peter Andrews' 'natural sequence farming' which takes reclamation up several more levels. PLEASE LOOK INTO Peter's reclamation method - it is based on WEEDS - not only do weeds do all the reclamation work for FREE but they do it the fastest of any thing else.Further, once the land has been re-fertilised by the WEEDS grasslands eventually take over.Yes,we could save the planet this way
Mar 9 2013: The UN ?? Fantastic idea - other large bodies ?? Super !! What about other influential people like Al Gore - Maybe Al would welcome a change from only telling us that global warming is real & anthropogenic, &, yes, we've absolutely got to stop producing so many greenhouse gases, & yes, we've got to wean ourselves off fossil fuels & go renewable, but if Mr Gore knew about some really good WAYS OF ACTUALLY REMOVING CO2 FROM THE BIOSPHERE he could tack such stories on to the end of his talks & leave everyone with a very, very nice taste in their mouths. And Allan Savory method is not the only good - no great - news, we can remove CO2 by turning organic waste into biochar, & by making "eco-cement" (look it up, you'll be amazed). And what about growing your own vegies - as does 'the Guerilla Gardener" in LA. What a fantastic idea. My sister already does it - dining on home grown organic vegies ??!!! Wow.
How do we contact the UN ??!!! How do we contact Al Gore?
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A comment on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
A reply on Conversation: How attached are you to your deeply held beliefs? If solutions to global problems challenge your worldview, how do you react?
The loss of the vast herds of mega fauna from the Australian continent had the same effect on this land that Allan's removal of the vast herds of African elephants had on Africa - as did the removal of the vast herds of bison on the American midwest. First, here in Australia after the demise of the mega fuana, the lush vegetation grew back madly unchecked & smoke & charcoal sediments in lake bottoms from that time are evidence that lighting-started wild fires stripped the continent bare of this plant cover almost immediately, or this plant cover just died & oxidised as Allan shows that it does without herbivores to eat & recycle it. Oxidising plants ruining the soil.
After this initial devastation of Australia 50,000 yrs ago then the 'second Australians' arrived a couple of hundred years ago & we late comers have utterly devastated millions & millions of once productive land all-over again.
Yes. Let's recognise the unspeakable crimes we humans have perpetrated on this planet - & on each other !!!! - but let's get on with 'un-doing' these atrocities. Let's weep for the elephants, bison & herds of wombats as big as rhinocerouses - but let's get on with restoring our ecologies & reversing climate change at the same time.
In Australia we have a miracle-working desert re-greener in the person of Peter Andrews. His method is called 'natural sequence farming'. Check it out.
A reply on Conversation: How attached are you to your deeply held beliefs? If solutions to global problems challenge your worldview, how do you react?
Some of the advantages of using weeds initially is that they do it all for free. They only have to be slashed a couple of times. And for the many vegetarians who are pricking up their ears about these fabulous ways of re-greening our planet & reversing global warming at the same time, natural sequence farming doesn't rely on beef production. So you don't have to go out & buy a herd of any kind of meat producing animals to be successful. Peter Andrews learned his method of desert reclamation raising horses. Check it out Cheers
A comment on Conversation: How attached are you to your deeply held beliefs? If solutions to global problems challenge your worldview, how do you react?
Cult recruitment practices work extremely well when they do work because the recruits are taken 'there' - they are invited/persuaded to enter into a world where they are (seemingly) 'loved' & taken care of some for the first time in their lives. Recruits are flooded with epiphanic-inducing circumstances & spoken messages. These two examples of 'arranged epiphanies' do not exhaust the list.
My point being that epiphanies do happen, are possible, not only change the subject's mind but not infrequently his or her whole way of being, & also can be deliberately orchestrated & in the hands of ethical 'practitioners' operate to the good of everyone concerned.
Imagine for effectively most people's minds could be changed by visiting a example of Allan's work.
In the 'greening the planet & reversing climate change via the Allan Savory's method' 'ethical practitioners' could be no more than 'tour guides' showing willing visitors around examples of his work.
Undoubtedly the Savory Institute is also an extremely powerful & highly ethical epiphany-inducing phenomenon in its own right - any one desiring to become involved in this work, attending the Institute & becoming a student of his ideas, would almost certainly be guaranteed non-stop epiphanies on a daily basis .. ... .. Sure wish I could - & take along a couple of nay-sayers too if I could persuade them . . . . . . Cheers from Down Under
A comment on Conversation: How attached are you to your deeply held beliefs? If solutions to global problems challenge your worldview, how do you react?
Allan Savory's talk would be epiphanic - if only mildly - for many of those of us who's psychic 'garden soils' are already both fertile & moist enough for his ideas to take hold, take root & begin to grow. Even here 'blossoms' would be a long way off.
But in principle (but perhaps not in practice) no great difficulty at all attends the task of deliberately ARRANGING circumstances so that not just mild epiphanies but grande mal ones will occur in any individual willing to expose themselves to these deliberately contrived epiphanic-inducing circumstances. And here I refer to the phenomenon of simply 'being there'.
Imagine if you went in person to see Allan's work !!!????? And even took a doubtful nay-sayer along with you ???
Although I hesitate to point it out due to the deservedly bad reputation the practice now enjoys, 'interventions' are attempts to create good epiphanies in those persuaded to experience them. If you don't already know in an intervention the subject is persuaded to enter a rehab centre - but apparently all too many back fire. Possibly due in great part to the infertility of the subjects psychic garden soils making it impossible for the seeds of wellness & wholeness to take root - let alone grow & ultimately blossom. The manner in which cults recruit new members by seducing them from off the streets where they live as homeless
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
The Savory Institute may well have more answers as to Allan method of reclamation - cheers
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
A comment on Conversation: Campaign to get the UN to offer training to livestock owners and landowners in Allan Savory's Holistic Management techniques.
How do we contact the UN ??!!! How do we contact Al Gore?
A comment on Conversation: What are other ways we can take an astonishing solution (livestock) to reverse climate change (once caused by that very solution)?